Leanne Shawler, Artist

My superpower is to get out of a crowd quickly. I'm not a small person, so I do indeed treat this as a particular gift. While I do have, in some measure, kindness and empathy, it is seasons like the one we're currently in where I wish I had it to the extent that it is a superpower: Empathy Girl. (See, I already have a name for it, and I am longing to do a portrait of her too.) The articles I've found are about coming together as human beings to love and care for one another. First, though, I highly recommend this Meditation When the World is Falling Apart by Christianne Squires at Still Forming . It is a beautiful thing. How to Listen when you Disagree: A Lesson from the Republican National Convention at Urban Confessional Hospitality and the Secret Power of Weakness by Micha Boyett at Grace Table Holy Spirit and Holy Empathy by Scott Gun at Seven Whole Days,  a lovely reflection on how things went down at the recent Anglican Church of Canada synod Send Fo...

Happy Pride! I’ve never been to a Pride Parade before, let alone walked in one.  It’s the crowds, you see, and the heat, as I told a friend. But after the tragedy at Pulse in Florida, I felt a pull toward showing my support for the LGBTQI community, but by that time entries into the parade had closed. No worries, our new deacon at Good Sam got a small handful of us organized and we walked with St. Paul’s Cathedral, along with about four other churches on Saturday. Three church ladies walk in a parade... As we waited our turn to go, we cheered wildly for the various police departments and law enforcement that passed us by. Because, Dallas. I have no idea how San Diego measures up against the reformed police department in Dallas, but in that moment, it didn’t matter. I looked up at the streamers carried by the St. Bart’s youth, that usually represent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in church. And here they were in the world. Yes, I thought. The Holy Spi...

I have an update to my overhaul of my art space and it is also an opportunity to link to this year's Where Bloggers Create , hosted by Karen Valentine at My Desert Cottage . I found that I needed somewhere to put a palette/paint mixing place, and as the goal was not to use the icon writing space for anything but icon writing, I brought a piece of furniture that had been banished from the space for a few years, put some plastic wrap on it to protect the top and I'm currently using palette paper for the mixing. When I run out of that, I'll look into get some glass or perspex or something for the top. Here is that part of the space before: and after (apologies for the lighting, it was twilight when I took the photo): It's a pine bedside table that I painted and used for storage for a while. So if you haven't seen my overhaul that I did in June, you can see that at this link . And for previous instantiations of my craft room now art stu...

It's been a horrible few weeks in America. There seems to be some sort of madness infecting the population: fear, hatred, anger. And let's be honest, we've all felt one or more of those things in the past month, whether it's anger at our government for failing to implement protective measures for its citizenry (come on, not even a little gun control?!), fear of being hurt, dispossessed, rendered voiceless, etc. If you took a good look at yourself, you've probably at least reacted to something in fear, or anger, or frustration. I know I have. It's part of being human. But as a nation, we are out of balance. We are letting our darker natures get the better of us. After each police-caused death of an African-American, we cry out for anti-bias training in the police forces as part of the reform. Yes, but where do police officers come from? From our towns, from our churches, our temples and our mosques, from our friends, and from our families. Where do you ...

Hubby and I on a rainy day in Disneyland eating churros The title seems to maybe have the wrong number of negatives, but you know what I mean, right? How to write romances: early on I joined Romance Writers of America, because that's what I was writing and I didn't know anybody outside of my husband's family How to spell without a "u", e.g. "colour" vs "color" fish tacos churros I really doubt I would've learned more about my faith, the Bible, Christian history thanks to taking Education for Ministry and from becoming members at Good Sam Benedictine monastery food is really good I would've have pronounced "Cursillo" incorrectly. (Hint: it's not Curs-ILL-oh) How amazingly wonderful Disneyland is  Judaism: working in a synagogue has taught (and is teaching me) a lot. Not a whole lot of opportunities to work in a synagogue where I grew up Baseball. Not that I’m particularly interested in team sports, but the fi...

I wanted to put all these posts together from 2010 of a collaborative book that we put together: I posted in three parts: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 I handmade cuffs as a thank you to each of the participants: Sue's cuff Rita's cuff Pam's cuff Sandy's cuff Cristina's cuff

I've participated in Where Bloggers Create which is a blog party that shows off various creative spaces. I wanted to put them all into one spot for future reference. If you want to see my past entries, you can click here: 2009 in its barest of bones (I didn't participate in the blog party, but wanted to show in 2010 how my room, which is a small third bedroom, had looked before.); 2010 which is like a complete reveal with an additional post on my homemade hanky curtains ; 2011 after an overhaul of the closet (the doors fell off); 2012 , where I decided to show some "for real" pictures. 2015 , ditto "for real" pictures 2016 , rearranging and substantial changes to the space, and a small update regarding the corner with the easel